Nachos and Patriotism

Spanish Word of the Day: Nachos

Just got done with serving nachos for three hours at the Cesar Chavez festival at the school. I can still hear the dance music thrum through my window. My hands smell like combination processed cheese and flan.

I have been so irritated lately. I seriously need to destress. It all started when a history teacher told and encouraged students not to stand up during the Pledge of Allegiance. Now technically they have the "right" not to stand... as long as they sit silently, but as teachers, we're used to having students follow directions.

So just because he was told he could, one of my students pushed my buttons and told me "Mr. ___ said I didn't have to stand." I asked to speak with the student outside. The student refused to leave my classroom until I had him threatened to have him bodily removed from class... that was the fifth time I told him.

Once outside he proceeded to argue with me, telling me in no uncertain terms that he didn't have to... his sole reasoning was because the other teacher told him he didn't have to. I told him his laziness was a personal insult to me, my father, and my family. I told him that he was here in the US to get a free public education and the flag is the embodiment of the ideals that support the public schools. The smirk on his face didn't falter when I told him that he could stay in my class if he could follow my directions. If he refused, then he would find himself elsewhere.

So I go back into class and he sits down immediately confabbing with his buddies about the whole thing and I begin to speak. "Despite popular opinion, schools are not democracies. They are monarchies... and I am the Queen of this Classroom. When I say open the window, you open the window. When I say open your notebooks, you open your notebooks. When I say stand, you stand."

"No." Jorge says loudly.

"You don't follow my directions, you receive a referral." So I sent him to ACE... then I went downstairs to the counseling center to talk to the SLO, (Spanish Liason Officer). She agrees with my side of the story and starts looking to see if we can write a truant letter on him and get his mom to sign a "you're a second semester senior and there's no hope that you're going to graduate so go away" slip.

Good News: Student should be gone.
Bad News: I don't have the authority to tell a student to stand up for the pledge.